Memur-Sen

Data:

Foundation data: 1995

Affiliated Unions: 12

Members : 650.328 (2012)

Members in management council: 7

History:

As public sector unionism was illegal until recently, Memur-Sen was founded officially in 1995. Memur-Sen is a religiously inspired union which defends the ‘Muslim brotherhood’ (not to be confused with the political movement) and therefore aims to establish harmonious relations between employees and employers (Trade Unions in Turkey, 1998). Memur-Sen is known for its close affiliation with Hak-Is and religious political parties such as AKP & SP.

Memur-Sen was the smallest of the three public sector confederations (next to Kamu-Sen & KESK), yet it increased their membership year over year and currently has almost as much members as Kamu-Sen.

Memur-Sen is not affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

Membership

Where Memur-Sen was still a relatively small confederation in 2004, it became the largest of the public sector union confederations by 2009 and the massive growth in membership has not slowed down in the last years. Memur-Sen now has about 650.000 members which is almost as much as the members of KESK and Kamu-Sen together.

Most of the members of Memur-Sen come from the Educational sector and health sector. But also the sector of religious affairs (Diyanet Sen) accounts for about 9% of the members of Memur-Sen. In 2004 Diyanet Sen still accounted for about 21% of the Memur-Sen members. Although Diyanet Sen increased its membership base by about 20.000 since 2004; the other sectoral unions grew faster (especially Saglik Sen).